season

Invitation’s Curling—Come in, Already

Invitation’s Curling—Come in, Already

If Christmas is the first day, then

This is the sixth

But then that makes the fifth

The twelfth

So maybe Christmas is its own

And then the following

Twelve days are tributes,

Are a season ‘til the sixth,

The magi

The baptism by his cousin John

The revelation by a dove

Of who he is,

Which is a lot of growing up in

Twelve or thirteen days

He was in a manger

Only six days ago

And soon, depending on the full moon

And the spring,

He will be grown and on a forty-day

Journey to Jerusalem

Such things will happen in that time

The biggest coming later

A cataclysm of the each and sky

Pierced by hammered beam

And crushing empire

The abhorrence of nature, even human

The death of everything

That had been hopeful

The death of him

The death of us

Any prospects in an honest joy of living

Then the count of days, only after

And by going back,

Really begins

But before so much of that

There is this

Half-season of Christmas

Sing the carols

Claim the gifts

Play and work

Burn the homely fires

Testify to this

The witness in each moment

Christmastide

The time no one will wait for,

That is wait for well

It has arrived

However romantic,

The darkness of anticipation’s passed

We are here now

This is the best where and when

We have

C L Couch

Photo by Sora Sagano on Unsplash

December 30, 2019 0

What Do You Say, Dear?

What Do You Say, Dear?

Sometimes in weariness we wander

While we stay inside, trying to take in

The world about

How much sense we can make with

What immediate surrounds us

We don’t know,

Certainly

We can open a book of the paper

Or electric kind, and we should

Where do answer lie?

Like asking of the hills to bring our help

Or something in a psalm

We don’t need a tube (that

Kind of lumen, as I understand it)

We can read

We can listen, better

(though we listen to the reading words, I’m sure)

More directly,

We can have an understanding

With all atoms we encounter

We can be grateful

A moment of small noise in which

We utter some

Thanksgiving

And with an attitude re-enter everything

C L Couch

What Do You Say, Dear? is a delightful and wise book by Sesyle Joslin, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

Chester, United Kingdom

November 22, 2019 0

Pumpkin Spice Girls

Pumpkin Spice Girls

Fall, fall

Then fall some more

It’s all right, it is the season

I guess all the seasons can be verbs,

Especially the quarter that is half a year

From now

Spring and fall

Fall then spring

This sounds all right

Pretty hopeful, really

Maybe there’s a joke in that,

See you in the spring

After you fall

Seasons that are seasoning

We spice our lives with them

C L Couch

Photo by George Gvasalia on Unsplash

Lake Lisi, Tbilisi, Georgia

October 18, 2019 0

Too Technical for Numbers

Too Technical for Numbers

The people of the nanosecond

That might be the Japanese and us

The Russians and the Chinese

German timing

Somewhere there might be

Understanding of a season

When were you born?

There was great rain

It was a miracle

The Druids were aware of something

Witches, too

They mark the seasons, still

Despite our tendency to burn

Churches change with colors

But maybe not their stripes

I don’t mean to condemn

The vestige of Christ on Earth

But maybe take away

The matches

And return the decision made

Long ago at Whitby

Let the Celts ally with nature

In the faith

So that creation’s flow of time

A day that is an age

Shall inherit blessings now

Of peace and mourning

Birth and, so to say

All of life

C L Couch

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

“Eventually everything hits the bottom, and all you have to do is wait until someone comes along, and turns it back again.”

July 30, 2019 0

Day 181

Day 181

It’s Friday afternoon

Day 180’s passing

And so the children should be

Out of school for summer

Last rides in yellow buses

For a while

They can populate the stores

For a time

And visit in each residence

Pets should be happier

For the company

And lemonade or something like

Becomes a commodity

I don’t mean to say

It’s all sugary

Some will need work,

Too many will go hungry

There will be

Pain from separations of all kinds

But some will take trips

They will enjoy

And though not expressed,

Wear a new kind of gratitude

As a child,

My summers weren’t idyllic

But I couldn’t help from time to time

First relief, then

Reveling in freedom

C L Couch

Photo by Luiz Guimaraes on Unsplash

June 14, 2019 0

After Words

After Words

(Lent 41)

There must still be words

We’re stuck with them, I guess

Or at least I am

We could end here

Or yesterday

But we won’t,

Which is not a matter of words

As it is of life

Yet we should be ready

Now,

To pause when needed

Maybe turn the pause to play

Whatever is called for

It’s called for often

Snow day

Day in the sun

Comp time (whoever has this)

Playing hooky

(you can look it up)

Work will resume

With its kind of

Awareness, learning, deciding

Not in cryptic ways

Or inaccessible

Though recall that there’s a mystery

In pretty much everything

The kind that moves a martyr’s heart

And for other reasons, too, can thrill the heart

Of each of us

Of the sort like

Joan, Priscilla, Rachel, Esther

Judith, Hrosvitha, and Hildegard

Who found their way with God

While in the world

And for the Joans, Priscillas, Rachels, Esthers

Judiths, though I don’t suppose we’ll be

Naming anyone Hildegard or

Hrosvitha for a while

We may

We will

I don’t know, I think we’ll find

What we need

As long as we don’t keep the process to ourselves

Or the results

Anyway,

I thought I should say something once it’s all over,

Our Lenten experience

We’re comingling times and traditions

Of the end of Lent (for those still counting),

The Passion, the Triduum, then

Easter and the Easter season

I pray

Together and apart

These are all good for you

The way spring days, clean from rain,

Can be

C L Couch

note for the blog

Counting forty days from Ash Wednesday takes Lent through Palm Sunday, which might seem odd given the reflective nature of the season maybe abandoned in triumphant celebration. But the count of days in Lent can take out the Sundays and Holy (Maundy) Thursday (when the celebration of the Eucharist occurs) and add in Good Friday and Holy Saturday to make up a count and observation of forty days. Timing of events for the Passion and the Triduum might overlap this way of counting, and it’s also true that some have it (more or less officially, according to one’s tradition) that the length of Lent (even the sense of forty days) be taken metaphorically.

I guess I’m counting forty days from Ash Wednesday and let the paradox of Palm Sunday prevail.

Whew.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia User John Morgan CC-BY-2.0

April 15, 2019 0

Lent 40

Lent 40

(hopscotch-counting)

Try again

Sometimes it’s hard

Though not harder and less rewarding than

A life inside a cage

Kept without a lock

Some count the season from day one

As I have counted

Some take out Sundays, a timeslip in

The forward flow of days

Any days that might allow for

Contrary feasting

Some leave the season longer

And forty is a metaphor

For wilderness experience

If we count forty from first Wednesday

We are here today

Triumphal entry, as it’s said

As songs are sung

As palms are waved in happiness

And salutation

For the one who’s here

While our invested time is closing

A passion time begins

When blood with flow with water

In a garden, on the streets, and

Later on a cross

What have we done?

What do we do?

How many who are cheering now

Will spit the words out later

Broken of humor into mocking?

How many will be caught

And tried by Caiaphas

With a nod to Pilate?

How many, at least, will try war

The worldliest of ways

In bids for freedom

With endings still debated in

The courts of heaven?

Well, we have something

We have had our season

And know without expectation

Any more than making

That another season follows

It’s today

The end and the beginning

Celebrate

But keep the palm fronds close

Maybe contrive a reminder

For the window sill

Over which we view into

The next spate of days

And on into forever

Take us with you

Some things we do alone

So many more need not

Go that way

We may go another

C L Couch

Photo by Peter Fogden on Unsplash

April 14, 2019 2

Lent 39

Lent 39

(penultimancy)

you must take time

to breathe

finish the song that’s been

going through your head

figure out what you were looking for

when you came into the room

(then find it)

pay attention to

what matters

which is not a scolding

but a happy watchword

paying attention’s fun

because you can (too) take the time

to gather in what’s pleasant

along the way

the thing is that the rest of the world

won’t stop with us, won’t take the time

except maybe to take it

and not give it back

choose something like a star

and Frost is right

we can select

from our own, something fantastic

that we’ll never keep

someone else could pick it, too

(we don’t have to tell

or make a fuss)

after all, what’s our own

but what is also shared

heart and soul

in an entire cosmos

the season ends tomorrow

with an entry into

everything that’s next

in practice and remembrance

we’ll have our parts

attendance won’t be checked

in any way that matters

(delight in grace)

but presence, well, let’s have it

as self-mandatory

vigil

and arrival

passion follows

C L Couch

Image by Mohit Mourya from Pixabay

April 13, 2019 0

Lent 38

Lent 38

Today must be the day

After a season of surrender

Otherwise, loss becomes a vacuum

Other things that we don’t need

Will come to live

Because nature will otherwise abhor

We cleared out distractions

Others are in line

But what do we want inside?

A virtue of busyness awaits

Preoccupations that are less than healthy

Frankly old sins, patterns of

Destruction that laugh like imps

Want to be reinvested there

We turned out the fat and sugar

Turn out some devils, too

Let them abscond with what they have

Escape into the darkness

Where exorcism

Or psychology might reach them

Some battles are beyond us

Some are right at home

The war at home

C L Couch

the chariot driven by Norse deity Freyja for whom Friday is named (in consideration with Frigg—yes, the chariot is drawn by cats)

(Detail) from the Fresco Cycle “Aus dem Sagenkreis der Edda” in the Neues Museum, Berlin. The fresco was damaged in WWII and abandoned until the unification of Germany.

(fresco by) Robert Müller, 1850

http://www.germanicmythology.com/works/FREYJACATCARART.html

April 12, 2019 0